Balance RFC

[Olvenmage]

Initially I wrote a ticket about this since this is clearly not a 'Suggestion" but a clear inaccuracy.
I've played classic era a bunch, including hardcore gameplay and in my lifetime I think i've done the RFC instance maybe 40 times.
So I was stoked to do a RFC run on Turtle Wow only to find out it is horribly, and i mean, horribly overtuned...
We were in a group with all level 14/15s and I was level 17 myself and we couldn't even down oggleflint..
Every mob hits you for around 100 and that's just not how the dungeon is supposed to go..
Yesterday I did an RFC run on classic era wow with a group of LEVEL ELEVEN characters on HC with ZERO casualties..
I think we wiped like 3-4 times in total on turtle wow at lvl 14/15...
This needs to be balanced asap because noone want to queue for RFC and it's a shame

[Fin]

Hello.

There are difference in difficulty between private servers vanilla wow and classic. Turtle is tunned like all private servers which are more difficult then classic. We won't be changing the tunning to match classic. The challenge is part of the game and players are expected to overcome it. All vanilla dungeons on turtle have been fully cleared by hardcore players multiple times since the start of the hardcore challenge while matching the dungeons recommended levels.

[Redmagejoe]

Classic =/= Vanilla

You are playing on a Vanilla server, not a Classic server. Classic is easy mode Vanilla.

[Olvenmage]

Even if classic != vanilla this dungeon still just feels awful to play imo.
I'm not saying the dungeons can't be cleared, you probably need CC comps to do it and I feel like dungeons should be more accessible than that but whatever

[Redmagejoe]

Even if classic != vanilla this dungeon still just feels awful to play imo.
I'm not saying the dungeons can't be cleared, you probably need CC comps to do it and I feel like dungeons should be more accessible than that but whatever

RFC in specific demands a 16+ tank, preferably not in all whites. If your tank has less than 500 HP, it's going to be a bad time. You can usually tell looking at your comp in advance if you can pull it off. Despite 13 being the minimum level, 14 would be better for new spell ranks, and you never want your DPS to be more than 3 levels below the last boss. Since both Jergosh and Bazzalan are 16, this means that 14+ is completely acceptable, but again, at least a few greens would be ideal going in.

It is completely doable without any CC, but it does require the tank can stay alive and knows how to manage aggro of multiple enemies, communication of the team about prioritizing enemies (kill Shamans before melees, kill Warlocks before guards, etc), etc. There's more thought required for tackling elites and dungeons in Vanilla than in Classic.

[Bellybutton]

Classic WoW elites and dungeons are actually nerfed compared to traditional Vanilla WoW elites and dungeons.
Elites and dungeons in Turtle WoW, as well as most Vanilla private servers, are much closer in tuning to Vanilla WoW than Classic WoW is.

[Karrados]

Before making such claims you should look up what they wrote in 2019 with references.

People accused Blizzard of making elites / bosses easier in dungeons and the open world only for the Community Manager to whip out two screenshots of their tests, one with the Classic tuning and one with their 1.12.1 Reference Test Server.

So please stop calling Turtle "Vanilla accurate" or close to it because it's not. Private Servers have worked with "Wrong" numbers for decades and no one ever said anything but that does not mean that it makes it accurate.

At this point I would believe Blizzard who actually has access to their 1.12.1 Database compared to +15 year old memories of someone.

[Gantulga]

Before making such claims you should look up what they wrote in 2019 with references.

People accused Blizzard of making elites / bosses easier in dungeons and the open world only for the Community Manager to whip out two screenshots of their tests, one with the Classic tuning and one with their 1.12.1 Reference Test Server.

So please stop calling Turtle "Vanilla accurate" or close to it because it's not. Private Servers have worked with "Wrong" numbers for decades and no one ever said anything but that does not mean that it makes it accurate.

At this point I would believe Blizzard who actually has access to their 1.12.1 Database compared to +15 year old memories of someone.

That's bullshit. Classic was in no way accurate and pretty much everything did less damage than in vanilla. Not to mention it had completely broken game mechanics like spell hit and many others.

RFC is easy just like most vanilla content. You're supposed to CC if you can and line of sight the casters.

Yesterday I did an RFC run on classic era wow with a group of LEVEL ELEVEN characters on HC with ZERO casualties..

This illustrates just how messed up classic is. You shouldn't be able to do anything in there with such a huge level difference.

[Karrados]

Then prove it. Show me how they did less damage than in Vanilla because I have two screenshots of their comparison between the first Deadmine boss where he pretty much hit the same both in Vanilla and in Classic.

There was also the case of "Open world mobs do less damage" only for it to turn out to be a bug and once it was released it did the same damage that it did in the actual Vanilla client.

https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/ga ... 362677.png Classic
https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/ga ... 362591.png 1.12.1

But sure. Private Server owner that had to guess the damage numbers for the most part or try to "Remember" how it was over a decade ago know more than the people with access to the actual numbers, lol.

[Gantulga]

I played actual vanilla and the stuff people were doing in classic was definitely and mathematically not possible in vanilla. I was literally duoing dungeons in classic, at the intended level.
Let's not forget mechanical bugs like being able to consistently hit raid mobs without any hit to speak of or needing much lower resistances than usual to tank. PvP was also plagued by a myriad of bugs never present in vanilla.

Blizzard itself admitted they have "lost" original vanilla data and it showed with classic which was a messy TBC packport.

Either way this is a moot point as the game is pretty easy and forgiving on this server with all the custom buffs to classes and gear. Not that any of it is difficult even in barebones 1.12 vmangos.

[Bellybutton]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Blizzard literally say ages ago that one of the reasons that they didn't do Classic/one of the obstacles for making Classic was that they no longer had their original vanilla data and that they'd have to guestimate the numbers and all sorts scripting much like how private servers did, but using TBC numbers (in which elites and mobs in the open world were nerfed)?

If that's the case, how is Blizzard's modern 1.12.1 any more valid than than a private modern 1.12.1?
Vanilla private servers use an estimation of numbers that have been around and tinkered with for over a decade whilst WoW Classic uses an estimation of numbers which has only been around for 3-4 years and is admittedly using later expansion data as a starting point.

Even if in the off-chance that Blizzard's WoW Classic numbers are more faithful to true Vanilla numbers than Private Server vanilla numbers, the Vanilla that many of us have been playing for the last decade or so (playing longer than true vanilla or Classic Vanilla which both respectively lasted only a couple of years) are the numbers that Turtle uses and the numbers that a lot of us who mainly play on Private Servers remember the most.

[Karrados]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Blizzard literally say ages ago that one of the reasons that they didn't do Classic/one of the obstacles for making Classic was that they no longer had their original vanilla data and that they'd have to guestimate the numbers and all sorts scripting much like how private servers did, but using TBC numbers (in which elites and mobs in the open world were nerfed)?
How is Blizzard's modern 1.12.1 any more valid than than a private modern 1.12.1 in that case?

Their problem was not that they didn't have the Database, the problem was that it was unreadable in the new client. The whole "We do not have the database" turned out to be nothing but a lie just so people would stop asking until that one guy (Omar, I think?) locked himself away to work on porting their 1.12 to the new Client which, as we see by Classic, obviously worked.

I think they even mentioned on 2018 at the Blizz Con that they actually had the data on a backup drive.

[Gantulga]

Their problem was not that they didn't have the Database, the problem was that it was unreadable in the new client.

That's not how any of it works. Client and server side are two different things and numerical values like monster stats aren't on the client's side. Converting basic values like that from one database format to another can be quickly automated or even done by hand.

[Karrados]

Maybe I got the technical aspects wrong but it doesn't change the fact that they DO have the 1.12.1 Database and that they had to work on whatever they did to port it into the modern client.

I could also say that "This is not how any of this works" when I ask for actual evidence to your claim of the damage numbers which I have provided on my side at least. Your memory of when you played Vanilla +15 years ago is not valid. That has the same energy as "Just trust me bro" as your source.

[Bellybutton]

Should also mention; Let's say that Turtle did decide to abruptly use numbers closer to WoW Classic's database; For long-time Turtle players, and even longer-time vanilla private server players, this would be seen as wide sweeps of nerfs across almost every aspect of the game.

I can understand with the sudden boom of population in the last few weeks (we shot up from 2000-2500 online to 3500 online) thanks to exposure from streamers and youtubers that some people might be surprised and caught off guard that elite mobs and dungeons are """overtuned""" compared to WoW Classic, but that's the way that we on Private Servers have been playing the game for nearly a continuous decade now, compared to WoW Classic which is only 3 and a half years old, and Vanilla WoW which only lasted a little over 2 years and ended fifteen years ago; Nobody experienced or touched that version of Vanilla WoW in fifteen years, everything you remember about it are memories and experiences from almost two decades ago that should be taken with a grain of salt.

Blizzard's a company that went from "We don't have the data to vanilla WoW, it's all gone" to "Actually we had the data the whole time lol"; Two conflicting statements, It's up to you if you want to believe that WoW Classic's more accurate or not but you're taking the word of a company who said two opposing statements, over the word of a bunch of private server guys who made a database based around estimations and fuzzy memories.

I can see Blizzard lying and pretending they had the true vanilla database the whole time once they started to commit to WoW Classic, as a means of "legitimizing" WoW Classic in the public eye compared to Private Vanilla, but that's just aimless, baseless speculation from me who's jaded over Blizzard and their treatment of their IPs.

[Karrados]

I am not saying that we should change how it works - I am saying we should stop calling it "Vanilla accurate" because it is not.

[Gantulga]

Your memory of when you played Vanilla +15 years ago is not valid. That has the same energy as "Just trust me bro" as your source.

I'd rather trust over a decade of private server development, which was basing itself off the actual vanilla values as the development started pretty much at vanilla's release.

[Ugoboom]

Classic =/= Vanilla

You are playing on a Vanilla server, not a Classic server. Classic is easy mode Vanilla.

Classic = 2006 vanilla
Pserver vanilla = pserver vanilla.

Go review footage from 2006. you will find that calssic got pretty much every single gameplay detail correct.

But yeah, that doesn't mean you can't like overtuned vanilla. I too think it makes for a better game. But you can't say pservers are authentic, they are by far not and were the result of loads of loving guesswork over a decade+

[Pistol]

I much prefer the server being overtuned even if it isn't accurate.
Frankly, I'm much better at video games now than when I was when vanilla was just WoW so I prefer having some interesting gameplay instead of something I can play one-handed. I'm not clearing Naxx anytime soon so having dungeons be of some interest is pretty nice.

Anyways, I wouldn't worry too much about it. If you have a competent warrior tank and a healer that can read the blue bar below his health bar then ou'll be able to steamroll every dungeon between Deadmines and Uldaman with your eyes closed.

I figure you'll come around to this position once you get some levels in you.